The Long Road to Gaia by Timothy Ellis Page A

lot
of damage."
    He paused, looking at the nav map.
    "No wait," he went on. "The
Missouri is turning to retreat. So are the rest of our first line. Um. Those
still here that is. Oh hell."
    "What?"
    "The Battleship opposite her is moving
to prevent Missouri from leaving."
    "Can we intercept her?"
    The man looked hard at Jon, and swallowed
heavily.
    "Yes sir."
    "Ramming speed," Jon ordered.
    I've always wondered what that was. Ships
have fixed speed. They cruise at one speed, they have a top speed above it. But
nothing is actually defined as ramming speed. There is no extra above top speed
to ram with. Ramming speed was full speed. So why use special words. 'Ram the
bastard' would have made more sense. So much to learn yet about Humans.
    Boston turned slowly as she began picking
up speed.
    "Perhaps today is a good day to
die," muttered Jon, as he reseated himself. "Ka-Plaa!"
    The German Battleship was too late seeing
the threat, and Boston, now up near full speed, rammed her about a third of the
way down her length. The Battleships shields were so low, Boston went through
them with only minor damage.
    Both ships blew.
    I wound back time and looked at what
happened slowly.
    As I thought, Boston hit the Battleship,
and cleaved straight through her forward power room, which supplied the energy
to her forward guns. The power plants had exploded.
    I sighed heavily. Another dead Jon Hunter.
But this one had died a warrior, and a hero. Only no-one knew.
    I let the battle conclude.
    The Americans were able to disengage all
their Battleships, half their Cruisers, and a third of their fighters and
bombers. Very few of the larger ships were undamaged. Missouri was the worst
hit, and had escaped purely because of the actions of Boston.
    The Carriers were undamaged, as were their
escort, having been ordered to withdraw the moment the number and size of the
German fleet had been realized.
    The Americans fell back into Bermuda, where
they formed up with the Canadian fleet. They sent a hurry up to the British,
and began trying to repair their damage in preparation for the next battle.
    The Germans didn’t go far. They'd also been
bloodied, and losing one of their Battleships to an inferior ship hadn't gone
down well, and had made a significant mess of the down jump area. The Carriers
waited in Cuba to jump in when the jump point had been made safe, but it was
going to take several days to happen. As far as I could tell, it would give the
British time to join in.
    One appeared next to me.
    "Stop wasting time Thirteen. You're
needed in the meeting, not buggering around here."
    She vanished before I could say anything.
    I pondered the debris field, and the Hunter
family.
    Galactica had lost forty three scout ships
in the centuries it took her to reach the end of the galactic arm. Six of those
had killed Hunters. Another twenty three of them had killed someone from their
extended family of cousins and second and third cousins. Two of them had been named
Jonathon Hunter. Now a third Jon was dead. The first had been the only one to die
of old age. Space was a harsh place. Jonathon hadn't been an often used name in
the Hunter family, but since leaving Earth, it sure was lethal to those who had
it.
    It made you wonder why the family used the
name at all. Then again, there had also been fifteen named Jonathan, and none
of them had died violently or unexpectedly.
    It occurs that the spelling difference
might be someone like One playing silly buggers with the family. Making them
make a typo when filling in the birth name, for the ones on a one way trip to
eternity. Maybe I'm just becoming too cynical about One though.
    I wondered what the next Jonathon would be
like, and how he'd die. It was a depressing thought.
    Twelve appeared, grabbed me by the arm, and
shifted us back to the meeting.
    No-one said a thing, and we picked up where
I’d left off.
     

Four
     
    "War's over," announced Nineteen.
    Five rolled his eyes and appealed to One
silently. But